


Fight Another Day

by fanfic_nonnie



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Canon Divergent, Chocolate Box Treat, F/M, One Night Stand, Sexual Content, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6033580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfic_nonnie/pseuds/fanfic_nonnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex always seemed disinterested in women, but Alanna was something different. She was a squire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight Another Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffybun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybun/gifts).



The first time they fought, Alanna knew what to expect from Alex. He was a coolheaded swordsman, the best in his year, and they'd been anxious to try their steel against each other for months now, Alex more than she was. Alex always wanted to be the best. Alanna preferred to be her own best, but was not above _wanting_ to win as she brought sword up against sword, and they moved with lethal grace around each other, slashing and parrying, feinting and lunging.

At last, both tired and sweaty and aching, they closed in for a last flurry of swords, and the edge of Alex's sword caught the binding on her shirt in a way she had completely not expected.

The battle stopped, his face an image of confusion, as she drew back, mortified.

She should have stayed, ensured his silence. She fled.

* * *

Over the next few days, Alex watched her with an increasing amount of calculation glinting in his eyes. It was only a matter of time before she would no longer be able to avoid him.

He caught her in a back hallway three days after the incident, one she'd chosen expressly to avoid the general traffic and him.

But there he was, leaning against the stone and waiting for her as she stifled a groan.

"Alex," she greeted simply. No use beating around the bush.

"Spar with me?" he asked, eyes intense in a way that made her swallow down… discomfort. She felt her heart speed up a bit.

"You can say whatever you want to here." Alanna pushed back with the words. She didn't like the idea of being blackmailed.

Alex's face darkened and his expression turned scathing. "I can say whatever I want to with the sword."

It struck her then with surprising force, the only thing Alex had always cared about was being the best, honing his skill, and she was a _girl_ who'd almost bested him.

"Can you be quiet about this?" she finally said. No use wasting a perfectly good opportunity to make things clear.

He straightened. "You have to become a knight," he said more quietly than she had. "Then we can finish this."

It was an answer full of implications she wasn't sure she wanted to examine, but the idea of testing skill against skill demanded time and training and _skill._ She could see his point.

"Perhaps we should wait then," she pointed out.

He studied her with those gleaming dark eyes, that intensity that almost frightened her with how focused it was. "Very well," he said at last and melted back into the hallway.

* * *

Delia's attention to Jonathan had a strong tendency to make Alanna furious. What she didn't expect was for Alex to materialize beside her and comment on it.

"These parties draw out the least interesting conversation, do they not?" He watched Delia's flattering of Jonathan pointedly before turning to Alanna and raising a brow.

"I'll take that spar now," she replied testily.

She watched the interest sharpen in his eyes. "I thought you wanted to wait."

"I want to get out of here," she answered.

He obliged her.

They didn't go to the training courts or to retrieve swords against each other. He led her to his own room and paused outside the door with a question on his face.

He'd always seemed disinterested in women, and she flushed as she realized what he was actually asking.

"I thought you weren't into girls," she commented as she passed through the door and turned to look at him.

He shrugged easily. "You're a squire."

She was. She wasn't soft and simpering or flattering like Delia. Alanna was fierce and hard and pushed back when he moved against her. It was half dance, something she'd never been more than awkward at, and half battle, something both of them knew fluently. She let him show her things she didn't know about her body, where to touch, how to push harder than she'd imagined when she imagined this, then she turned the tables and forced him to let her roll over on top where she could bear down and control this uncontrollable feeling racing through her. 

Muscles spasmed and her body arched without her permission. He shoved up against her, gripped her hips to push her into the rhythm he wanted, and she let him when a lull caught up to her. She let him push the issue until heat clenched her again and she forced her own pace to match the intensity of what she was feeling.

She bit her lip hard to keep it locked inside her, realized she couldn't hold still anymore if she tried, and kept pushing harder and harder to reach something she desperately wanted.

Her climax caught her off-guard, rushing through her, and she finally lost competely her grip on controlling it before falling against him, breathing hard.

He wasn't a cuddler any more than she was, but he held her close for a while afterward, until she stirred and sat up on one arm.

"I should probably go."

He leaned back to let her clamber out of the bed more easily and watched hear as she pulled her clothes back on with that same intensity that made her want to blush.

"Until that fight?" she said, almost as casually as she wanted to.

"Until then," he agreed.


End file.
